This has been chosen the TIME Magazine's famous photo essay, and if you please take time to read it...and why this essay has made Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama...
Nisha Khan, Kareem's step mother over his grave
Colin Powell said on Meet the Press:
I'm also troubled by - not what Senator McCain says - but what members of the Party say, and it is permitted to be said: such things as, "Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim." Well, the correct answer is he is not a Muslim. He's a Christian; has always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, "What if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country?" The answer's "No, that's not America." Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim American kid believing that he or she could be President? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own Party drop the suggestion he's Muslim and he might be associated with terrorists. This is not the way we should be doing it in America.
I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who were serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery. And she had her head on the headstone of her son's grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards - Purple Heart, Bronze Star; showed that he died in Iraq; gave his date of birth, date of death. He was twenty years old. And then at the very top of the headstone, it didn't have a Christian cross. It didn't have a Star of David. It had a crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Karim Rashad Sultan Kahn. And he was an American. He was born in New Jersey, he was fourteen years old at the time of 9/11 and he waited until he could go serve his country and he gave his life.
Now, we have got to stop polarizing ourself in this way. And John McCain is as non-discriminatory as anyone I know. But I'm troubled about the fact that within the Party we have these kinds of expressions
Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, Muslim, Born in America and American Citizen
The most moving part of the statement Colin Powell gave on Meet The Press endorsing Barack Obama for president centered on the story of one grave in Arlington. It is the grave of Kareem Khan, a young man from New Jersey who was so moved by the tragedy and shock of Sept. 11, 2001, when he was just a boy, that he enlisted in the Army as soon as he could.
Khan liked video games, the Dallas Cowboys and Starbust candies.
He was also a Muslim. Powell talked about the whispering campaign among some McCain supporters who say that Obama is Muslim.
First, Powell said, it is not true. Obama is a Christian, and always has been.
Second, Powell emphasized, what if he is Muslim? Isn't that the American way -- that a Muslim, or an Episopalian, or a Jew, or a Hindu or anyone else can grow up in this country with the same dream -- the dream that anything is possible, even the presidency.
The Gannett News Service profiled Khan after his death in 2007 from a bomb:
Khan's faith in Islam is important now to his father and stepmother, Nisha Khan, because they want to make sure people in America know that Muslims like Kareem were willing to fight for their country. "His Muslim faith did not make him not want to go. It never stopped him," said Feroze Khan. "He looked at it that he's American and he has a job to do."
The last package Nisha Khan, 40, sent her stepson included a necklace that had Kareem's name in Arabic, next to the word "Bismillah," which means praise to Allah.
In the Islamic tradition, last rites must be within a few days of death. Khan's funeral at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia is scheduled Thursday. The family will perform traditional Islamic rites at home and have a full military burial.
"Hopefully Allah will understand," said Nisha Khan. The Arlington Cemetery website features the full article and many photos (including one shown here) that keep Khan's memory glowing. Click for the full Kareem Khan story, a story that influenced Colin Powell, and, perhaps, the course of the election.
-- Carl Lavin
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